


Invincible Summer

by shutterbug



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Angst, Drama, During Canon, Episode Related, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Road Trips, Romance, frame story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2018-11-15 06:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11225118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutterbug/pseuds/shutterbug
Summary: On a road trip, Jim's memories keep him company.Memories take place throughout Jim and Pam's relationship, from friends to husband and wife (pre- to post-series), but they are framed by events that occur during the Texas period (post-series).





	1. Prologue: The Road

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter rating: K  
> Chapter summary: Jim sets off on a road trip.

Steeped in the morning sun, the Texas dirt flares rust-red. Jim’s eyes trace the dusty paths that snake between the sage of his xeriscaped yard. Echoes of his family’s goodbyes still burn his ears as he tears his gaze from the house and briefly closes his eyes, repeating his mantra: _Back in nine days. I’ll be back in nine days._

He set a hard deadline for departure. Nine o’clock. He spent yesterday night ignoring his open suitcase and barely left himself time in the morning to pack and shower. He skipped breakfast; he’d eat on the road.

From the seat of his Crosstrek--a hybrid; Pam had insisted--Jim glances at his luggage in the backseat. Cece’s softball equipment still clutters the trunk, and he didn't save enough time to unload it. Her first season ended a month ago, and Cece’s flighty eight-year-old attention had already shifted to other pastimes. Jim could remember her first hit. The elated shock on her face as she stood at home plate, bat still in hand, watching the ball dribble past the shortstop. From the dugout, he tried to coach her as he coached all first-time hitters, smiling and waving her to first, shouting, “Run! Run! Run to first, Cece! Run to first! You got it!”

He smiles now, shaking his head at the memory but letting it linger before refocusing himself to review his travel checklist. He taps the steering wheel as he mentally checks off each essential--toothbrush, razor, socks--until he assures himself that he has everything. That he didn't forget anything.

Jim leans sideways, past a soft cooler of road snacks, and opens the glove compartment. His fingers instantly find a small piece of coal that Pam gave to him shortly after their arrival in Austin.

“To remind you of home,” she said before his first road trip from Texas--a jaunt to Kansas City to meet with Mike Moustakas.

“But we don’t live in Scranton anymore.”

“Well, I figured this was more compact than steer horns. You know, easier to fit in the car.”

Over time, it came to remind him of their life--their slow start, their joys, their struggles.

Jim stares down at the rock for a moment, then closes his hand around it, feeling its hard edges press into his palm. Dipping his head, he closes his eyes and touches his fist to his chest, drawing a deep breath--once, twice--before stowing his coal back in the compartment.

Slipping on his sunglasses, he faces the day, gives life to the engine, and starts down the road.


	2. Mile 328

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim and Pam attend a mandatory office outing at an unusual local event. Jim learns about Pam's childhood. Pam learns to look before she eats. 
> 
> References to a teapot "inside joke" from "Christmas Party" (S1E10).
> 
> Chapter rating: K+

Jim blinks as a patch of shade passes over the car--a welcome relief from the strong August heat. The truck eclipsing the sun, he notices, is carrying cattle. Black, white, and brown faces turn toward the outside air. Nostrils widen, and round eyes peer at him as they pass. In his mind, they’re traveling to a happy place. Peaceful. Green.

Throop.

For one day every year, Throop _bustled_. Throop, the small town whose name was butchered by everyone but locals.

“Throop. Like an army troop,” they’d say. “We don’t say the ‘th’ sound.”

Throop, which covered only five square miles. Throop, with one claim to fame: the annual cow flop.

And, on a cloudless Sunday at Throop’s little league baseball field, the cow flop was packed. Packed and bustling.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” Pam said, tapping the toe of her sneaker on the ground.

Jim stood beside her, leaning against the left field fence. He and Phyllis bookended the rest of the Dunder Mifflin contingent--Tom, Dwight, Kevin, Kelly, and Pam. Jim expected several others to make reluctant appearances.

He inched closer to Pam and bent low, elbows braced against the fence. “Well, we wouldn’t be here if Michael hadn’t made it mandatory,” he replied with a low whisper.

“Still,” she said, matching his volume. “I can’t believe we’re here. This is”--the corner of her mouth twitched with the start of a smile--“so weird.” She scanned the outfield, painted with two-thousand squares. Each square, numbered one to two-thousand, corresponded to raffle tickets sold at the gate. Ten dollars each. Pam had wavered at the price; only several months into her engagement, she claimed she had to save as much as possible for her wedding. So Jim had covered her ticket. The funds paid for little league and softball equipment, a cause that Jim could get behind. Plus it gave her a reason to stick around until the end. With him. Without Roy. Outside of work. That alone was worth the ten dollars.

“I’m surprised Michael’s not here yet,” Pam said, angling her body toward him.

Without checking in with his brain, his body mirrored hers, and he leaned sideways on the fence. “Uh, yeah,” he said, quickly surveying the crowd for Michael. “Me too.”

The flop had been Michael’s idea. After harassing the staff with random outbursts of “poop!” and recovering from a fit of self-induced hysterics, he’d insisted that everyone show up. He’d even offered to give them Monday off. A couple hours on a Sunday outside of the office was a decent trade for a full day off, and the staff voted to attend, 9-1. Kelly had been the only nay vote. Gutsy, considering she’d only just finished her first week on the job.

Even after claiming a spot along the fence, Kelly didn’t bother to hide her impatience. “Does anyone know how long this is going to take?” she asked.

Kevin piped up. “I heard it could take _hours_.”

“ _Hours?!_ How long has it been out there?” Kelly asked, gesturing to field.

“Daisy,” Kevin said curtly.

“What?”  

“You said ‘ _it_ ,’” said Kevin. “The cow’s name is Daisy.”

“I don’t care what its name is, Kevin!”

Jim raised his eyebrows, first at Kelly, then at Pam, who was already grinning at him. Since Kelly’s outburst had apparently irked Kevin into silence, Jim volunteered an answer to Kelly’s original question. “Uh, I think Daisy’s been out there for about ten minutes.”

Kelly shifted her weight. “And we have to wait for her to…?”

Jim nodded. “Poop on a square, yeah.”

Kelly raised her hands in objection, as if she were trying to stop his words from reaching her. “Don’t say poop.”

“What am I supposed to--”

“Don’t say poop. I can still hear Michael saying it.”

He quickly shut his mouth, which quivered and threatened to pull into a wide smirk. He refused to look at Pam, whose smile and silent laughter would only make him break.

Daisy plodded toward center field.

“And whichever square she”--Kelly paused, obviously searching for an alternate word--“hits is the winner?”

“Yup.”

Kelly’s brow creased. Confusion swept over her face. “How do we know who won?”

Jim chanced a glimpse at Pam. She had ducked her head, face turned toward the grass, but he could still make out her full cheek, the smile lines at the corner of her eye. _Damn it, Pam._ He cleared his throat to impede his bubbling laughter. “Well,” he said. “The, uh, square number will match the number on someone’s raffle ticket. And that someone is the winner.”

“Wait,” Kelly said, incensed. “ _Wait_. We needed to buy a _raffle_ ticket?”

“Well, yeah,” he replied. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

  
With a bluster, Kelly broke the line. “I’m out of here. I’m not waiting around for some cow to poop so someone else could win money.”

He let himself smile as Kelly stomped away. “So _she_ can say poop, but I can’t?” he asked.

Clumsy with laughter, Pam side-stepped toward him until her arm bumped his. Instantly, his smile faltered; his laughter turned nervous. Once his brain--a couple months into the job--stopped thinking of her as Pam, his cute and funny co-worker, and began to see her as Pam, the cute and funny woman he wanted in his bed, even accidental touches made his insides squirm. Twist like a wrung-out towel.

To draw his focus away from his churning stomach and the sun-warm touch of her skin, he cleared his throat for the second time in as many minutes and nodded to the ticket in her hand.  “So what’s your number?”

She straightened up, checking her ticket. “One thousand and thirty-six. It’s over there.” She pointed at center field. “Near the middle, I think.”

“Not bad, Beesly. Seems as likely a spot as any.”

Dwight, who had been remarkably quiet on the other side of Kevin, finally inserted himself into the conversation. “It’s true. I’ve come here every year since I was twelve, and I have detected absolutely no pattern. No square is any more or less likely than another to win.”

“Huh,” Pam said. “But aren’t some animals particular about where they go? Growing up, we had this dog who always went to the edges of the yard to--”

“Cows aren’t like that,” Dwight interrupted. “Their digestive system is designed to rid the body of waste in a timely and efficient manner. They couldn’t care less where they are.

“So they’ll just poop anywhere?” she asked.

“Did somebody say poop?”

All but Tom turned to look over their shoulder at Michael, who stood behind Pam with a clown-wide smile.

“Who’s ready for some flopping?” he asked, wedging himself between Pam and Jim. “I’ve got my ticket! Number one thousand! Lucky one thousand! Best chance of winning, right in the middle!”

“Actually, Michael,” Dwight said. “We were just discussing the randomness of a cow’s bowel movements--”

“Don’t you mean poop?” Michael hardly contained his giggles.

“Michael,” Pam said, her tone and expression severe.

Michael was undeterred. “Poop! Poopity-doopity!” he shouted, taking aim at Pam. “The big number two! The deuce!”

With crossed arms, she ducked out of the line of fire and started walking away from the fence.

Jim felt his heart leap with panic. He had barely spoken to Pam, and it was rare to see her outside of work--without Roy--for longer than a lunch. He had to snatch every moment he could get, even if he had to make some of them happen.

He hustled after her. “Pam!” he called, drowned out by the event announcer over the PA system--“Fireworks after the flop, folks!” Pam hadn’t heeded either of them.

“Hey! Pam!” He finally came within reach of her, and he hooked her by the bicep to pull her to a stop.

When she snapped her head around to face him, the alarm in her eyes struck at his heart like viper, and he rushed to speak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--” He released her, his hand falling limply to his side. “I just saw you walk away. Are you--” He swallowed, his ears filled with his own frantic words. Certain it was too late, that he'd given himself away, he neutralized his tone. “Are you leaving?”

“Oh. No,” she said. Relief flooded his chest when she gave him a gentle, apologetic smile. “I just--” She gestured to Michael. Jim filled in the blank. _Didn’t want to deal with Michael._

“Fair enough,” he said.

“And I’m hungry.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh. Well…” He trailed off as he looked around. “There’s a concession stand over there.” He pointed at the small trailer set up near home plate and added, “Just don’t get the hamburger.

“Right. No,” she said as she started to move toward the stand.

“It would be--”

“Weird, yeah,” she said. “With a cow right there.”

“Not just ‘a cow,’ Pam. _Daisy._ Come on,” he said, walking with a deliberate, glacial pace.

“Daisy. Of course. That was just”--her smile spread across her face with a playfulness that made his stomach somersault--“so _rude_ of me.”

If he were a bold man, he would have taken her hand. Touched his fingertips to the small of her back. Contact. _Some_ thing. _Any_ thing. Instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets and changed the subject. “So you had a dog?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “A Border Collie. Heather. She was great. So smart, too. She learned to open doors, and she’d hide our shoes when she knew we were about to leave the house.”

“You named her Heather?”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “It’s a little people-y. But we picked it because Border Collies are from Scotland. And we weren’t about to name her Scotty. Or Lassie.”

He squinted and searched his brain, shoving aside images of Pam laughing, playing with a happy, sideways-tongued dog. He struggled to follow her logic. “So, because they’re from Scotland…”

“And there’s _heather_ in Scotland.”

“Oh!” he shouted. “Heather! I get it!”

“ _Fin_ ally,” she teased.

“Like the plant.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Like the plant.” After a moment’s silence, she peered up at him and asked, “Isn’t your family originally from Scotland?”

He stared at her, aware of the sudden rush of heat in his face. He had mentioned his Scottish connection once--a joke remark about his shame of sharing a heritage with Michael--and she’d remembered it. She’d filed it away.

“Yes. Yes, they are,” he admitted. “So I, uh--I guess I should have caught on quicker.”

“You really should have.” They reached the end of the concession line, and, as she joined the line, she turned to face him. She frowned, her eyes downcast. “I’m disappointed, Jim. So disappointed.”

He recognized her act and played along. “I know.” He took advantage of the opportunity to step closer to her, to lower his voice, to make the world private, small--theirs. “Just--just don’t let them find out. Pam, they’ll--” He made a show of glancing over his shoulder. “They’ll take my _bag_ pipes away.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Well, we can’t have that.”

He shook his head. “We really can’t. I’m _high_ ly skilled.”

She snickered--a quiet snort at the top of her throat--and dropped the game. “No, you’re not.”

“ _Bees_ ly, how could you even--I’m hurt.” He pressed one hand to his chest to fake-ease his fake-injury. “I really know how to, uh--to squeeze the, uh--the bag.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Like a pro.”

“Well, maybe you could play sometime.” She paused and, when she spoke again, her voice was low enough to raise goosebumps on his skin. “I’d love to see you in a kilt.”

“You know,” he said. “On second thought, I’m awful.”

Her cheerful outpouring of laughter sent waves of relief through him. _Yes, please, laugh. Don’t--not that low-voiced, sexy taunting. God. Laugh._

He continued. “Really terrible. In fact, I think I’m going to confess this whole ‘heather’ thing to the secret--uh, Scottish club--yeah, the secret club, at our next meeting, just to make sure they take my bagpipes and kilt and other Scottish”--he was out of Scottish props--“ _things_ away from me.” He laughed with her, egging her on. “I think that would be best for everyone.”

Pam’s laughter still lingered when they arrived at the front of the line.

“Remember, no hamburger,” he reminded her.

“Well,” she said, her eyes on the menu. “Since hamburgers are out, I guess I’ll have a hot dog.”

She received her hot dog almost instantly, and Jim stepped to the condiment table with her. With her food cradled in one hand, she plunged the other into a jar of red packets and wasted no time in dressing her dog.

Jim’s eyes widened. “Pam, hang on. You’re putting--”

“Jim,” she said sternly. “I’d advise you not to stand between me and this hot dog right now.”

“But--”

“Shut it.”

He winced as she took her first bite. He waited.

She started to speak with her mouth full. “I told you I was hu--”  

He lunged for a napkin and thrust it toward her as she froze, dropping the rest of her hot dog. He tried to suppress a grin while she spit into the napkin.

“Oh my _god_ ,” she said, wiping her mouth. “That--”

“Yep.” He reached into the condiment jar.

“That was--”

“Yes, it was,” he said, holding up two hot sauce packets.

“And you _saw_? You--Why didn’t you stop me?” She crumpled the napkin and tossed it in the barrel trash can nearby.

“And stand between you and your hot dog?” he said. “No way.”

She paused, shaking her head. “I can’t be _lieve_ you let me eat that,” she said, landing a smack on his shoulder.

“Now, now, Beesly. Don’t blame _me_. I tried to step in. I tried to save those poor taste buds. I’m the hero here, not the villain.”

“Oh, so _I’m_ the villain?”

“To your taste buds?” He pretended to consider the question, his face twisted with exaggerated mock-thoughtfulness. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Well. I think. I--” She stumbled over her own words before she spouted, “I don’t _care_ what you think.”

“Well, that’s not true,” he countered, holding her gaze for a moment. “I think you’d care, for instance, if I said that I think we should get you another hot dog.”

He could see her battle to stop herself from smiling. She bit her lip. Ducked her head to hide her face. Finally, she covered her mouth with her hand and quietly, almost inaudibly mumbled, “Yes.”

“What’s that?”

She dropped her hand and raised her face to him. “Yes.”

“Yes, you care what I think? Or yes, we should get you another hot dog?”

“Both.”

He grinned. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got it. Payment for keeping my mouth shut.” Bravery welled in him, and he laid his hand flat between her shoulder blades and led her to the end of the line to wait with her.

The PA system blared the winner: “One thousand and one!”

They both burst into unstoppable laughter.

Watching the cattle truck speed ahead, Jim watches a brown and white cow at the rear and smiles softly. His hand flattens against his thigh, covering his pocket and the place he once stashed two hot sauce packets that, later, made it back to Pam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cow flop described is a real annual fundraiser in Throop, PA. It is a fundraiser for little league and softball leagues in the town. 
> 
> Also, the name "Throop" was mispronounced by Dwight on the show. He pronounced it with the "th" sound, but it is pronounced like "troop." The town takes its name from Benjamin Throop. Coincidentally, many locals have a dialect that does not always use the "th" sound. This dialect derives from the Polish language (there are many people of Polish heritage in northeastern Pennsylvania), which does not have a "th" sound.


	3. Mile 507

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the immediate aftermath of casino night, Jim tries to cope with the events of the evening and pack for his move to Stamford. He does both poorly.
> 
> References to "Casino Night" (S2E22).
> 
> Chapter rating: PG-13 (T)

Jim pulls his suitcase behind him and stops at the front desk of Roswell’s Holiday Inn.

While he waits for the clerk to check him into his room, he scans his texts. A small smile tugs at his mouth as he reads a message from Pam: _Philip has really taken to gymnastics. He insists on wearing a cape so he can pretend he’s a superhero._

The clerk sets his card-key and a hotel map on the counter. “This is your room,” she says, circling door number 110. “You can find a complimentary continental breakfast here”--another circle--“starting at 6:00 a.m. We also have a restaurant and bar.” After completing another sloppy circle on the paper, she points to her left 

He stops at his room, deposits his luggage just inside the door, and lets his stomach lead the way to the bar.

The bartender, a kid no older than twenty-two, descends on him before he has a chance to look at the laminated menu. “Hey, dude,” he drawls. “Can I get you anything?”

He suppresses the impulse to answer, “Yeah, a little less _‘dude’_ would be nice.” Instead he leans on the bar and says, “A basket of fries and…” He trails off, eyeing the modest but top-shelf collection of bottles on display. He stares at a bottle of Captain Morgan 100 Proof before he jerks his attention back to the kid. “A Tequila Sunrise.” One of Pam’s go-to drinks.

When the bartender sets this one in front of him, Jim eats the garnishes--a cherry and an orange slice--and peers down the bar at the only other traveler to claim a stool. Bearded man. Twenty-something. Outdoorsy. A dusty Osprey pack lies at his feet. Day pack, from the looks of it. Medium size. No sleeping bag. No tent. Jim wonders where he came from, and he considers starting a conversation, but his fries arrive before he introduces himself.

As he folds a fry into his mouth, his eyes wander back to Captain Morgan. He chews and swallows, his eyes locked onto the bottle of rum. His hand tenses around his chilled highball glass. The sensation--the wet, slippery cold--jolts him. Then he raises his glass, closes his eyes, and lets the sweet-and-sour citrus--the soft bite of tequila--flow onto his tongue.

The alcohol cascaded down his throat. Jim clenched his jaw, his hand wrapped around the bottle in a secure grip. He stood by his bed as another wave of rum crashed into the back of his mouth and fell to his stomach.

He had returned from casino night like a loser crawling back from Vegas: slumped under a heavy, suffocating shroud of regret. He’d gambled too much. He’d shown his cards. He’d lost everything. So before he’d kicked off his shoes, he’d raided Mark’s liquor stash, stole the strongest stuff he could find, and locked himself in his bedroom.

Just him and Captain Morgan. He’d nearly thrown it back into the cabinet when he’d read the label. Captain Morgan. Morgan. _Pamela_ Morgan. But he’d sneered sourly at the bottle and twisted it open with a quick and violent jerk.

In his bedroom, he shuffled to the foot of his bed. An open box lay there, holding a messy pile of books and pens, CDs and photographs--the start of his move to Stamford.

His transfer. His new life.

Broken echoes of conversations rattled in his head.

_Have you given any more thought to the transfer? Have you told anyone?_

Telling--telling Pam--had always been the plan, but Jan had accelerated it. His whole body had clenched with nerves as he’d rehearsed in the restroom. His knees had threatened to lock as he’d followed Pam out of the warehouse and into the humid air, fumbling with his car keys to suggest--to his co-workers, to Roy--that he intended to leave. Even as Roy drove away, Jim had reviewed his mental checklist: lay a foundation; joke around; make her laugh; mention Stamford; great opportunity, with one problem; avoid the word ‘love’; don’t scare her; open the door, and gently-- _gently_ \--invite her to walk through.

In the moment, he’d improvised, and she had slammed the door. Hard. Twice.

At least one of them had stuck to the script.

He closed his lips around the bottle and threw his head back. Another mouthful. Then another. Vapor scorched his sinuses. Each swallow hit his stomach like a boulder.

He dropped onto the bed, barely avoiding a pile of unpacked papers. He plucked the first from the top--a birthday card from his parents--and let it flutter to the bottom of the box. Next on the pile: a Dunder Mifflin Christmas card. The staff photo on the front of the card was his only picture of Pam.

He stared at her face for a moment, then tossed the card in the trash.  

Going back to the pile, he found Post-It notes that Pam had slipped to him in meetings. _If you’re bored, I find that picturing Dwight in lederhosen helps_ , one read. Another, he remembered, had almost made him spit out his soda. _That’s peanut butter stuck to the back of Michael’s head. He just asked me if he’d gotten it all out, but I couldn’t let you miss out on seeing this. Apparently, he tried to make his own smoothie this morning._

He crumpled her notes, hurling them into the trash, one by one. He wished he could purge the words he’d heard tonight just as easily, but they persisted. Swam in his head like jellyfish. _What do you expect me to say to that?_ They stung at his chest, his heart. _I’m really sorry if you misinterpreted things._ Shortened his breaths.

Heat rose up and through his face. His lips tingled. He funneled another mouthful of rum down his throat.

_You have no idea--what your friendship means to me._

His chest blazed with anger as his tongue pushed sloppy words past his lips. “I don’t want--I can’t do that. God, Pam, I can’t _do_ that.”

Gulping at the air, struggling to draw breath, he clumsily wiped at his forehead, trying to clear the  sweat at his hairline.

“I wanted _more_. I _told_ you!” he roared, sweeping the rest of the papers off the bed. “I _told_ you!”

The ghost of her face floated in front of him. Serious. A quick nod to say _yes_. But not to him. To Roy. And he’d said, “Okay.”

His throat constricted tightly, but he forced another swig of rum down. “But it’s not okay,” he choked. “It’s _not_ o _kay_. I didn’t misinterpret _any_ thing. I didn’t--you don’t kiss like that and not _feel_ something. I didn’t misinterpret anything.”

Despite the certainty in his own words, waves of shame threatened to drown him. Shame for baring himself so openly, for believing a kiss would convince her to accept him, for not knowing her well enough to anticipate her final decision.  

Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, and he blinked furiously at the ceiling. “Stop. Just stop,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. He stood up--his legs shook, threatening to buckle--and glanced around the room for a distraction.  

Calligraphy, drawn by hand, peeked out from under his bookcase and caught his attention. A blue seal decorated the corner. He abandoned Captain Morgan on the dresser and crouched down, nearly falling over. He snared the paper, and his eyes scanned the words.

_Congratulations!_

_You have earned your_

_Manual Transmission Certification_

_from the Pamela Beesly School of Good Drivers!_

_It was a pleasure to teach you!_

A strained, broken sound crackled through his gritted his teeth as he tore at the page. Jagged pieces landed on the floor around him. “Well, Pamela _Bee_ sly, I hope you enjoy your _fuck_ ing wedding!” he shouted, still ripping the paper. “Your _fuck_ ing wedding to your _fuck_ ing fiancé who doesn’t _fuck_ ing deserve you.”

When the page lay in scattered pieces, he curled forward and felt himself shaking with tremors he couldn’t stop. “I _loved_ you,” he whispered, barely audible. “I loved you. _God._ I _still_ love you. I _love_ you, Pam. I love you.”

Saliva pooled in his mouth. The room suddenly slid off-kilter. His heart pounded. His whole body shuddered.

“Ugh, god.” He lurched forward and crawled to the trash can, his breaths staggering out of him. Sitting back on his heels, he hugged the can to his chest, resting his forehead on the rim.

“Don’t fight it.” His voice echoed faintly in the trash can. “Just let it happen. Just let it--”

He braced himself before his body contracted--jerky, unstoppable, relentless. He heaved, catching a glimpse of mashed peanuts and pretzels as they splattered the papers--the faces--at the bottom of the trash can. Rocking on his knees, he reminded himself to breathe between convulsions, to ride it out. _It’ll be over soon. It’ll be over soon._

Despite the fuzzy, sour shellac on his tongue, he didn’t try to reach the bathroom to brush his teeth. When he tried to stand, the floor seemed to wobble sideways, so he hoisted himself onto his bed and collapsed into the wrinkled comforter. He burrowed under the covers like a tired mole, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the spinning, unstable world.

He never remembered falling asleep.

The next day, only Michael received a goodbye--cold and brief. He waited until everyone else had left the office before providing Michael with a written notice of his transfer. Michael made wild, desperate offers to make him stay as Jim silently packed his desk. It took him less than ten minutes. He left nothing behind.

On Sunday, he turned in his house keys, left Mark thirty-five dollars for the rum, and drove to Connecticut.

In the bar, Jim finishes his Tequila Sunrise and browses the photos on his phone. Cece proudly modeling a pair of hockey skates that Michael had sent for her birthday. Pam comfortably cradled in their backyard hammock, sunshine on her face. Philip on the balance beam.

As he leaves the bar and walks to his room, he marvels that he had once lost all hope of a future with Pam, and hears a familiar refrain echo in his mind: _I love you, Pam. I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although the post-"Casino Night" story has been told many times, I had to throw my version onto the pile, if only because I think it's a rite of passage for every Jim/Pam writer to touch on "Casino Night" at one time or another. Plus, no relationship-spanning story would be complete without exploring such a pivotal point in their journey. 
> 
> Thanks to all who have been reading along and have previously left me feedback/reviews. I appreciate it so, so much.


	4. Mile 646

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A local carnival. Chickens without heads. And a dangerous game that risks exposing Pam and Jim's six-day-old relationship. 
> 
> References to "The Job" (S3E24), "Chair Model" (S4E14), and "Goodbye, Toby" (S4E18). 
> 
> Chapter rating: (soft) M.

On his way out of the Holiday Inn, a local newspaper catches Jim’s attention.

A full-color Ferris Wheel consumes the cover--an advertisement for the Roswell Carnival. The caption promises “out of this world fun.” A sub-caption outlines other events--livestock awards, carnival games, a rodeo--but Jim’s eyes return to the Ferris Wheel, and the ghost of Pam’s voice whispers in his ears: 

“Okay, fine, the carousel is a classic carnival ride,” she said. “But the _Hurl_ er? That’s a modern classic.”

“A modern classic?” Jim asked, his voice drenched with skepticism. The sausage-and-pepper sandwich he’d eaten earlier churned unpleasantly in his stomach. “I think you mean a ‘puke machine.’”

Her shameless smile glowed in the orange-yellow light of the ride. “There’s a reason it’s called the Hurler,” she said.

“Well, sure.” His voice rose in playful self-defense. “I thought it just...hurled people around.”

“It does! You were absolutely right about that! But--”

“I just missed the hidden innuendo.”

She winced and rubbed his back--a pity-rub. “Not exactly _hidd_ en, Halpert,” she teased. “For someone so clever, you haven’t really been on the ball lately.”

His mouth popped open like a trout, then snapped closed without a comeback. His cheeks smoldered with embarrassment. She had called him out, and she was dead-center, right-on-the-money, one-hundred percent correct. For the past five days, he had been less sharp, less focused, and more distracted than usual. He had flown under the radar at work; Kevin, oddly, had been the only coworker to maintain a close watch on him, especially when he visited Pam’s desk. But the source of his spacey preoccupation had, as far as Jim knew, remained under wraps, and tomorrow would mark one week since he and Pam had started to date in secret.

He wished he could add a sexual milestone to their list of recent anniversaries, but they hadn’t yet spent the night together. Instead, they had finally given voice to unspoken words and harbored emotions, and traded stories from time spent apart.

After their second date, Jim had passed on the opportunity to take her to bed. His lips had throbbed from the pressure of her kisses and his breaths had come quickly, but their slate hadn’t been completely cleaned. _That_ hadn’t happened until today, just hours ago, when Pam had described her experience since his return from Stamford, confessed her jealousy toward Karen, and, with a shaky voice, relayed the fear that had gripped her when he’d interviewed in New York--fear that he would transfer, that she would lose him. Again. He’d swallowed around the knot in his throat as he’d held her, relieved when she’d suggested that they reward themselves for all their hard emotional work with a carnival date. “Then maybe,” she’d said with a smile, “a _car_ nal date.” He had teased her for picking such low-hanging fruit before following her to the car.

But her words had stuck with him. He tensed with anticipation whenever she touched him. His imagination refused to power down. Each ride they boarded pumped more adrenaline into his bloodstream that made him tremble and sweat, made him breathe faster--hard and shallow--and, most importantly, provided a cover against the physical reactions to the images swarming in his head. 

“Hey.” Pam’s voice burst through his fantasies. “You okay?”

“What? Oh. Yeah.” He veered toward the edge of the path and stopped beside a ticket booth. He turned his back to the bare white bulbs that spelled TICKETS above the window. “I’m fine. But you’re right--they don’t call it the Hurler for nothing.”

“Just don’t hurl for real.” She braced herself--hands on his shoulders--and stood on her toes as she leaned close. “That would make this really unpleasant,” she whispered, low and quiet, before  she tilted her head and kissed him.

As her mouth opened and her tongue slid past his lips, Jim’s eyes closed, but his mind raced, frantic to catalogue the pressure of her lips and texture of her tongue, the playful nip of her teeth and wisp of her breath. The soft buzz of her voice. Her heat. Her taste. Finally his to experience, to remember, to store in his mind.

When Pam fell back down to her heels, breaking their kiss, Jim’s gaze drifted over her head and surveyed the passing crowds.

His entire body clenched when he saw it. Him. Michael Scott. Cotton candy in one hand. Walking in their direction.

“Hide.”

Pam blinked at him. “What?”

“ _Hide_!” He nearly tripped over a thick cable as he yanked her into the shadows behind the ticket booth.

“Oh, nice,” she whispered. “This is better.”

“No, Pam, I saw--”

His words were muffled by her kiss, harder this time. She pushed him backwards until he hit the wall of the booth. Hands under his button-down, flat on his ribs, his sides, his back. Tongue against his--the wet, hot slip-slide of it--urgently _push_ ing. _God. Oh, god. Yes._

A broken, low sound rasped in his throat. Heat spilled over his face, his neck, chest, down. Past his belt. Across his hips. He was already half-hard, his dick pulsing as fast as his heart. As he squeezed her hips, he heard two voices at once--Pam’s soft, breathy moan against his lips and Michael’s demand for ten tickets--and he had never wished so much that he could be somewhere else. Somewhere else, where he could strip her clothes off and touch her in new places. Where he could learn how to pull sounds from her that he had never heard before. Where he could watch her face as he slid inside of her for the first time. Where Michael--where no one--would find them.

When he pulled away from her, he shook his head, breathless. “Pam.”

Misreading him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered against his skin, “Jim.”

He breathed hard, desperate for a distraction, a way to sidetrack her. Spying a row of stuffed farm animals--game prizes at a neighboring booth--he blurted out the first thought that came to his mind: “Did you know that chickens can actually survive without their heads?”

That did the trick. Like a bucket of ice water. Pam pulled back and raised her eyebrows at him. “What?”

He rushed to fan the flame of her curiosity. “I know everyone says that--you know, as a joke--but it’s true.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is.”

She eyed him warily, as if she believed she’d spotted a classic, albeit tame, prank. “You’re making this up.”

“I swear I’m not,” he said, able to grin easier now. “Apparently, there was a chicken that lived for eighteen months without a head.”

“No way.”

“His name was Miracle Mike.”

She scoffed, crossing her arms and joining him with her back to the booth, well hidden in shadow. “How can it live without its brain?”

“It can’t.”

“Then how--”

“It turns out that a chicken’s brain extends down its neck, and as long as that part, uh, remains, the chicken can still move and breathe and eat.”

“ _Eat_?”

He side-stepped closer to her. “It’s possible. You don’t want to know the details.”

She squinted at him, still suspicious. “There’s no way. You’re preying on my trusting nature.”

“Yes.”

Impatience laced her voice. “ _Jim_.”

“Okay, honestly, it is true, but that’s not why I brought it up,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Don’t be mad. I just”--he glanced over his shoulder toward the crowds--“I just wanted to distract you when Michael walked by.

“ _What_!?”

He hurried to quiet her. “See? Clearly, you needed a distraction, and _clear_ ly you need to work on your stealth capabilities.”

She _tsk_ ed at him. “I can’t believe you would say that,” she said, her tone heavy with mock-disappointment. “After _all_ the pranks I’ve helped you with.”

He tilted his head, smiling. For a moment, memories of Pam-assisted pranks flashed in his head. “And you’ve always been great, but you’ve been given very particular roles.”

“Oh, really?”

“Ones that play to your strengths.”

“And stealth isn’t one of those strengths?” she asked.

He grinned at her. He enjoyed this--the playful button-pushing, the teasing. After his return to Scranton, they had drifted away from it, but he was relieved it had come back so quickly, so naturally.

Her eyes danced with mischief as she insisted, “I could be stealthy.”

“Well, with a little training--”

She darted out of the shadows, back onto the path, and headed in Michael’s direction.

Surprise delayed him for a half-second before he chased after her and managed to catch her by the elbow. “Pam, what the hell are you--”

Her smile stretched across her face, and Jim was, in the same second, struck by her casual beauty and seized by the paranoia of being found out.

Pam’s words tipped the scales toward his paranoia: “I bet I can keep Michael in my sights for the next half-hour without being seen.”

“Pam, I don’t think this is a good--”

“If I win,” she said, “I get to coordinate the next prank at work. And play whatever role I want.”

His anxiety crept into his tone. “And if you lose, Michael will find out we’re dating, and _then_ I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole _world_ found out.”

She shook her arm out of his grip. “You don’t have to come along.” She raised her eyebrows, cocked her head to the side, and crossed her arms--a challenger awaiting acceptance.

His mouth pursed, and he looked away, feeling caught. Caught and excited. Excited by her spirit, more daring, more self-possessed than she had ever been. Talking back. Baiting him. Catching him off-guard. He loved her for it.

Deep in his brain, paranoia still buzzed, but he couldn’t stop his own smile. “You’re on, Beesly,” he said, noting the time on his watch. Then he glanced ahead, spotting Michael’s head bobbing in the crowd. “A half-hour from now, you’ll be sorry you ever made this bet.”

She beamed as she ran after Michael, taking cover behind food stands as if she were the lead in a spy thriller. He half-expected her to try a forward roll across the path. Jim followed as casually as he could until they reached the Ferris Wheel. Michael stood at the end of the line for the ride.

“We’re going in,” she said, voice low but playful.

“It’s a Ferris Wheel, Pam, not a hostage situation,” he teased, then dashed with her to the back of the line behind a middle-aged couple that had joined the line behind Michael. When they settled onto the ride, Jim could see the back of Michael’s head two cars away.

Less than two minutes later, Jim felt his anxiety spike when he glanced behind them to see Toby and his daughter boarding the next car. “Nope. Nope. This--ugh, god, this isn’t good,” he said, sliding down and onto the floor like a liquid. He grasped Pam’s shirt and tried to pull her down with him.

“Jim, it’s spy time,” she said, resisting. “I’m watching Michael.”

“No, Pam. _Pam_.” He clutched a fistful of her shirt.

She finally looked down at him.

He rushed to speak, eager to draw her out of view of the other riders. “Toby is in the car behind us.”

“What? Toby?” she asked.

“Yeah, with his daughter.”

Her eyes darted behind them and widened. “Oh, my god.” She sunk to the floor beside him, but a smile played on her face.

“The last thing I want right now is for the whole office to find out about us before we’ve even had a chance to enjoy this--”

She smirked, leaning toward him. “I don’t know, Jim, this has been pretty enjoyable so far.”

“Pam.”

She shifted next to him and, to Jim’s immediate relief, dropped the play-acting. “Jim, I know you’re nervous,” she said, laying her hand on his thigh. “And you want us to be able to enjoy our first few months together.”

Jim’s breath skittered. _Months_. She was already viewing their relationship in terms of months.

“And I do too,” she continued. “And I’m going to make that happen for us, Jim. Because I’m a super spy.”

He rolled his eyes. “Pam--”

“And I’m going to teach you, Jim. First lesson. Act naturally.” With a soft shove, she pressed him against the side of the car, weaved her fingers into his hair, and guided him into a kiss.  

For a moment, he let her lead and lost himself in her slow, gentle kiss. His body relaxed and his world narrowed to the heat of her mouth, her hands in his hair--until the Ferris Wheel jerked and their kiss ended. His eyes snapped open, his brain hyper-alert, wary of their neighbors.

Pam quickly recaptured his attention. She climbed onto him and straddled him, holding his head in her hands. Still nervous, he looked into her eyes--he couldn’t look anywhere else--and felt her thumbs glide over his cheekbones as she said, “If anyone sees us, they’ll think we’re some drunk couple making out.” She planted a kiss on his neck. “They won’t look twice. They probably won’t notice us at all.”

Jim rested his hands on her waist and concentrated on her kisses, puzzled when she suddenly pulled back with a smile.

“I just realized,” she said, playing with the collar of his shirt. “Nobody’s seen me with my nice curly hair yet, so they may not even recognize me--all de-frizzified--even if they saw me.”

He nodded. Some of the tension melted out of his muscles as he grinned at her. “That’s true.”

“I wasn’t sure if you noticed.

Her uncertain tone pinched his heart. “I noticed,” he assured her. He had noticed as soon as she’d opened her apartment door, but she’d teased him about his lateness, and his compliment had been left on her threshold. “It looks great.”

She curled a lock of hair around her finger. “You like it?”

“I love it,” he said, his face tilted up to her, a soft half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

As she let her hair unravel, he found her left hand--still near his collar--and squeezed it, held it with both hands. His mind flashed with a painful memory as he met her eyes, but he pushed the memory away, drew a breath, and said, “I love you.”

She reacted immediately--a small  inhale that Jim may have missed if he hadn’t been so close. Her brow furrowed. Her hand squeezed back. Then she cupped his jaw and kissed him, her lips landing on his as delicately as a butterfly on a flower.

When she pulled away--only inches--she met his eyes, wordless. Jim closed his eyes, battling the panic that prickled his chest and constricted his throat with each second that she stayed silent. He wet his lips, about to say her name--to push her to words--when her mouth finally moved and her words brushed his cheek.

“I love you, too, Jim.”

A gusty breath stormed out of him. He lowered his head, his forehead stopped by her breastbone. The rest of his body slackened, all its tension freed and released. His hands fell weakly on her thighs. Air rushed in and out of his lungs, and his heart beat hard in his ears, threatening to drown out the echo of her words. _I love you, too, Jim. I love you.  
_

He kept his eyes closed as he heard her words over and over, and he didn’t open them even when Pam lifted his face.

“Jim,” she said, her voice strained with emotion.

He squeezed his eyes tighter.

“Jim. Look at me.” She swept his hair away from his forehead. Her voice was louder, firmer when she spoke again. “ _Look_ at me.”

His windpipe felt as wide as a straw when he opened his eyes and met her gaze. The stars moved behind her head; the Ferris Wheel had begun to descend. The corners of his eyes stung.

“It’s real,” she said. “It's real. I promise. I love you. I’m in love with you.”

His throat was too tight to let him speak; only a strangled, gravelly sound slipped past his lips as tears attacked his vision. He buried his face into the curve of her neck. His hot, humid breath formed a dense cloud around his face as he breathed his own wet air. He had spent years imagining those words, in her voice; it was what he’d wanted. When they had started dating, when they had talked, cleaned their slate, teased each other and had fun, _this_ was still what he’d wanted, more than anything.

She dropped another kiss on his lips, soft and chaste. Then she climbed off him to huddle against his side, her hand on his chest and her head on his shoulder. In the silence--so different than moments ago--his breaths slowed to a normal rhythm, his heart beat quietly--happily--in his chest.

As the car descended close to the ground, Pam stirred, peeking over the side as Michael departed his car. “Jim,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“It’s time for the next lesson.”

“What’s that?”

“Run for it.” With a smile, she pulled him out of the car and away from the ride.  

He quickly overtook her, but he slammed to a stop when he heard her shout from behind him: “Jim! Wait!”

He doubled back and found her crouched down, holding her ankle. “Oh, my god. Are you okay?”

She spoke through gritted teeth. “I twisted my ankle, I think. I don’t know. It hurts.”

He looked behind her and saw a divot in the grassy path. Only a few yards behind the divot, he saw Toby with his daughter. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Toby,” he said, nodding behind her. “Can you walk?”

She answered with a couple feeble hobbles.

“All right,” he said, lifting her up and bolting for the parking lot. He never looked back to see if they had blown their cover.

Back at her apartment, Jim helped her into bed. He gathered ice and Advil, then, at her urging, joined her under the covers. Less than ten minutes later, she was asleep.

The next year, when the crew asked him if was kidding about his plans to propose, he left out the details of the day before that compelled him to walk into Boccardo’s for the ring. Before Toby’s party, he mentioned the fireworks, but waited until he was out of earshot of the crew to confirm the Ferris Wheel rental. He’d kept that secret.

Before he leaves the hotel, Jim reaches down for a copy of the newspaper and tucks it under his arm. In his car, he folds it in half and slips it into the glove compartment, under his piece of coal. Then he puts the car in gear and begins the second leg of his trip, heading for the Arizona border.


	5. Mile 692

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After four days of radio silence, Jim finds Pam alone at a bus stop and stumbles into serious territory when she reveals a deeply held fear that could disrupt their new relationship.
> 
> Chapter rating: MA (NC-17) (for the sexy times).

As fat raindrops pound on his windshield, Jim chuckles as the opening beats of “Africa” play over the radio. Dark, low clouds cover the sky, a soft slate of gray. A thunderclap sends a shudder through the car, and he considers stopping beneath an overpass, but he sets his wipers on their highest setting and squints into the rain. The Saguaro he passes looks nothing like an Acacia, but he sings along softly anyway.

“I bless the rains down in A-a-af-rica-a-a.”

He winced at his own voice. “ _That_ ’s not the note,” he said out loud, to no one. “And  _these_ are not good wipers.” He should have picked up new ones over the weekend, but Pam had wanted to play indoor mini-golf, and, with the chance to best her in a meaningless sport  _and_  live out the stand-behind-your-lady-and-coach-her-on-her-stroke fantasy, windshield wipers melted out of his mind.

He would have said his overwhelming victory was worth it, too, except he hadn’t seen Pam outside of the office all week. It was Thursday.

“Gonna take some time to do the things we never ha…” His singing trailed off as he looked through the blurred curtain of rain on his windshield. A familiar figure stood on the sidewalk beside a bus stop bench.

He turned down the radio and rolled down the window as he slowed to a stop. Pam tried to hide her face with her umbrella.

“Pam?”

She turned up the collar of her raincoat and shied away from him.

Before that moment, Jim hadn’t questioned Pam’s reasons for being unable to see him that week. He had been disappointed, but he knew that life happened--mother-daughter phone calls could last hours, laundry needed to be done, bathrooms needed to be cleaned. But he suddenly wondered if he had adopted too paternalistic a tone at Hole 7. If he had teased her about her loss a little too much over pizza. If he had asked her one too many times to fax a purchase order.

He shook his head, dismissing his own fears. Pam had never misinterpreted his tone before, never mistook his jokes for serious critique, and never took a business request personally. But confusion still simmered in his chest. No explanation seemed to fit, and he stared at her as the rain flowed off her umbrella and onto her shoes, splashing gray water onto her ankles.

“Well,” he said, loudly enough for her to hear him over the rain. “I’d say this is an extreme way to protest that one time I failed to signal.”

Jim couldn’t see her face, but she practically rolled her eyes with her whole body--shoulders drooped, head tilted, one knee bent. A thin wisp of breath drifted out from under her umbrella. “I’m not--that’s not,” she stuttered.

“Where’s your car?”

“In the shop.”

“And you’re too embarrassed to ask for a ride home? That doesn’t seem like you.”

“I’m fine, Jim,” she said. “Just go home.”

Raindrops dribbled down the inside of his door. The damp cold air snaked under his collar and made him shiver. Suspicion blended with his confusion. “Okay, well, why don’t you let me take you home first? You’re soaked.”

Her free hand plunged into her coat pocket. “It’s just a little water,” she said. “And the bus will be here in--”

Jim leaned out of the car to catch her words, but he couldn’t make them out.

“I’m sorry,” he said, frustrating edging into his voice. “ _When_  will the bus be here?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“All right,” he said, activating his hazard lights and opening the door. His body stiffened even before he could step into the cold rain.

As his foot splashed down onto the sidewalk, Pam lifted her umbrella and revealed her face. A curl of hair was stuck to her tense, flushed cheek. “Okay!” she yelled. “Okay! Fine!” She brushed past him and stepped off the curb. “I didn’t think kidnapping was your style, but I guess I was wrong,” she snapped as she wrenched open the passenger door.

He climbed back inside and watched her reach for her seatbelt. He considered returning her gibe. He nearly cut to the chase and asked her what he had done to make her this pissy. But he drew a deep breath and followed the crooked path of a raindrop down his windshield. He couldn’t hope to dampen Pam’s anger if he supplied more fuel. Better to douse it with water--lighthearted and disarming water.

“Oh, kidnapping is  _def_ initely my style.” He spoke with a smile. “I haven’t even shown you my blindfolds yet. Or the bunker. I can’t  _wait_  to show you the bunker. It’s homey.”

The spike of Pam’s enormous umbrella narrowly missed his head as it sailed into the backseat.

He stared at her. Half of him wanted to wrap his arm around her shoulders, gently pluck her hair off her face, and coax her worries out of her between kisses. The other half wanted to throw her back out into the rain. Somehow neither option seemed realistic.

Silence hovered between them as he shifted his car and pulled away from the curb. Thunder rumbled and faded before he spoke again. “There’s a quilt, a nice one.”

“What?”

“In the bunker.” When she looked at him, he flashed her a smile and waggled his eyebrows.

“Don’t.” She turned away to face her window, resting her chin in her palm.

“And when we get there,” he said, “I’m going to make you all cozy--blanket, tea, the works--and you’re going to talk to me, kidnappee to kidnapper.”

She stayed quiet.

Discouragement sprouted in the pit of his stomach. He did his best to ignore it as he continued. “You  _said_  it wasn’t the blinker, but I don’t know,” he said, lacing his words with playful suspicion. “If it’s not the blinker issue, then I can only assume--”

She huffed. “Jim, drop it.”

“That you’re bothered because I  _kind_  of ran that red light on the way home on Sunday. It was  _tech_ nically still yellow, but I admit it.” He pressed his hand to his chest as if to show he assumed full responsibility for his misstep. “I admit it, I cut it close.”

She released a soft sigh. “That’s not it,” she said wearily.

“But we had already ordered that pizza.”

“Jim, that’s not it,” she said, a little louder. She turned to face forward in her seat. A frown pulled at the corner of her mouth.

He forced himself to maintain a sunny tone and pushed on as if he hadn’t heard her. “We  _had_  to beat the delivery guy to the house--”

“Jim.”

“--because we hadn’t eaten since--”

“That’s not--”

“What--eight o’clock? Something like that. And we had no food. Well, other than that leftover soup, and, I’m sorry, soup is a lunch food, not--”

“ _Jim_! That’s  _not it_!” She finally shouted at him, shifting abruptly to face him. Her hair unstuck from her face and flew over her shoulder.

He hadn’t exactly been prepared for an outburst; he’d hoped for a reluctant smile, a change in mood. But he realized now that he had forced her to open up, like an oblivious otter accidentally cracking open his first clam. He suspected that he was about to reap a far less delicious reward.

“You  _know_  I don’t get mad over  _stu_ pid,  _small_ \--”

Thunder interrupted her.

“I  _prob_ ably would have  _told_  you, but you  _had_  to drive by at that ex _act_ \--when I wasn’t pre _pared_ \--”

A car sped past in the opposite direction, and a wave of water crashed over the windshield.

Just as quickly as the car, Pam barreled toward her point, but she lost steam when another rumble of thunder cut her off. She sank low in her seat, a hard breath blustering out of her. When she spoke again, her words drifted weakly toward the roof. “I was worried you’d suspect something and not leave it alone,” she said. “But you didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve been trying to...deal with...this  _thing_. You know, make sense of it before I talked to you.”

Jim’s mind suddenly reeled. Horrifying scenarios flashed in his head. Wild and far-fetched, sure, but each thought made him grip the wheel harder. She was sick. She had cancer. A freak cancer. She had a stalker. She’d witnessed a murder and was being framed. Or she had to go into witness protection. Or she--

Pam’s soft whisper jarred him from his thoughts. “I’m a bad person, Jim.”

His head snapped to the side, his mouth open and face furrowed with confusion. His eyes briefly searched her half-hidden face before he looked back at the road. Of all the possible confessions he had imagined, this was-- _this_  had never even entered his mind. “Pam, that’s--” He stopped himself.  _That’s crazy_ , he nearly said, but remembered his own frenzied thoughts from a moment ago. Instead, he floundered for a rebuttal, feebly settling on: “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. She played with the wet hem of her coat. “I am. I’m a bad person.” The words seemed to flow easier this time.

He faltered, too flabbergasted to tease her and point out the absurdity of her claim. He could only give voice to his confusion, trying to work out her meaning in real time. “Pam, I mean, sure, you play pranks sometimes, and I saw you throw out that mailer asking for money for the homeless, but--”

“No, not like that.” A sad smile tugged at her mouth. “I mean, for real. I’m a bad person.”

For a moment, relief displaced his confusion as he pulled into Pam’s driveway. His powers of concentration only reached so far, and he had started to worry about arriving safely home as he tried to follow Pam into what seemed like very serious territory. He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes before he said, “Can I just press pause for a second?” He raised his head and looked at her. “So we can go inside?”

She nodded. Her eyes shone with tears, but he turned away, quietly exited the car, and followed her to her door.

Inside, Jim let the silence stretch out between them. He watched her peel away her coat and hang it on a hook near the door. She took off her shoes, padded to the thermostat, then disappeared into the kitchen. She left a trail of moist footprints behind her. The refrigerator opened. He waited beside the radiator, which hissed and rattled as heat wafted past his legs, and watched as Pam swept back into view and headed toward her bedroom. She never looked at him.

“Pam, I think,” he started, following her into the bedroom. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he came to stand near the foot of her bed, central in the room. “I think everyone does things they’re not proud of, and it makes sense to feel bad--”

She shook her head. “It’s not like that,” she said. “I  _hoped_  it was like that.” She walked to her dresser. “An overdeveloped sense of guilt, or something, but…it’s bigger than that.” She frowned as she opened a drawer and fished for dry clothes. “It’s about Roy.”

Irritation swelled in his chest at his own reaction. Stiff muscles. Tense face. Clenched stomach. Still, after all this time, despite everything that had happened, the name evoked the same reaction. He closed his eyes, battling the numbness that threatened to overtake his brain--an old defense mechanism--and forced himself to hear her.

“We were together for a long time. I thought I wanted...a life with him.”

She spoke slowly and gently. Jim knew she was trying to be careful, be sensitive. He drew a long, silent breath. When he opened his eyes, he fixed his gaze on the carpet.  

“And I imagined our life together. Our wedding. Our house. Our kids.”

He felt a muscle in his jaw twitch.

“I’m...re _liev_ ed I didn’t marry him, but…” She paused, and, despite himself, Jim raised his head to look at her, wishing he could slow the dull  _thud_  of his heart. Pam stepped closer to him, but still stood several feet away. “Jim, I can still see the look on his face when I told him”--she clenched her teeth as she swallowed--“that I didn’t want to marry him. He was...I  _crushed_  him. I hurt him so much that he--he wasn’t even angry. He was...he couldn’t look at me. It was like I--like I saw him crumble from the inside out. It was like I--”

“Pam,” he interrupted, his voice cracking on her name. He felt unsteady. He found himself dazed by her words and recollections and couldn’t see where she was headed. “Why are you--”

“Because it’s why--” She raised her hand to wipe away the tears on her face. “It’s why I’m a bad person.”

He blinked at her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, trying to discern if she had--Jesus, he wasn’t sure--he couldn’t  _imagine_  what had caused this to resurface. “Did you--” he started, then stopped, unsure of what to ask. He watched her sit down on the bed, her eyes trained on the comforter. Finally, he said, matter-of-fact, as if it was obvious, “You were unhappy.”

She shrugged. “I wanted to be  _more_  happy.”

In the silence that consumed the next few seconds, at least one disjointed piece fell into place in Jim’s mind. He rounded the corner of the bed and stopped in front of her. “Pam,” he said, then repeated, insistent but gentle, “Pam.” He waited for her to look up at him before he continued. “Do you think...you were  _selfish_?”

She lowered her head. Her words came slowly, heavy with condemnation. “I think that I hurt someone”--she pulled at a thread in her comforter--“so I could get what I wanted.”

“Pam--”

“And I keep thinking,” she rushed, sadness seeping into her voice. “We’ve been together for three months, and it’s been...what I wanted.”

For the first time since they stepped inside, the tightness around Jim’s heart loosened.

“You’re sweet, and funny, and thoughtful, and I love being with you.” She glanced quickly at him, and he tried to muster a grin for her before she looked back down. “But people who hurt other people...someone who has hurt another person like that...they don’t deserve to have this.”  

For a few seconds, he was speechless. He knew--as much as anyone with a conscience--the pain that came with deeply hurting someone. The second-guessing. The self-doubt. The shame. And, sure, he had never left a fiancee, but he could not understand--he  _could not_  wrap his head around--how she had reached her conclusion: that she deserved to suffer because she had pursued the life she wanted. That she was a bad person. “Pam, I don’t--” He crouched down in front of her. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“I know it’s not rational,” she said, waving her hand as if she were dismissing her own thoughts. “It’s not. But I think about how long we’ve waited to be with each other, and what we’ve both gone through to get to this point, and I can  _feel_  it in my stomach.” She flattened her hands over her abdomen. “This  _churn_ ing feeling when I think about losing you.” Her hands were still pressed to her stomach when she raised her eyes to search his face. Distress lines creased her forehead; her shoulders nearly touched her ears. “It seems too good to be true sometimes, you know?”

He recalled their early weeks. He had woken up, for days, with a smile. Previous annoyances failed to perturb him. He had strolled around with an upbeat step that rivaled Fred Astaire’s. He had picked on Dwight a little less and listened to Kelly a little more. And a voice inside him  _constantly_  reminded him of how lucky he was. Even after all that time--after painful, slow years full of distractions and desire--it reminded him of how  _damn lucky_  he was.

“Sometimes”--he tilted his head with a quick shrug--”yeah, it does.” With a lopsided smile, he closed his hand over hers. “But if this isn’t real, then this is the best, sexiest,  longest dream I’ve ever had, which is great because I usually don’t remember my dreams at all, so...”

She smiled faintly and squeezed his hand, but her eyes fell back to the comforter. “There’s just...this voice in my head that says, ‘At some point, you’ll find out what Roy felt like. Jim is going to realize that he’s with you for the wrong reasons--’”

“ _Whoa_ , Pam.” He leaned forward and set his hands on her knees. Frustration clawed at his throat. “I’m not with you for the wrong--”

“Or you’ll realize that I’m not what you  _really_  want.”

He craned his head to meet her eyes. “Pam. I swear. There’s--” He paused to wet his dry lips. “There’s no way.”

“There might be.”

“ _How_? Pam, I--”

“I don’t  _know_ , Jim!” She burst off the bed and walked to the window. She stood with her back to him. “It’ll be because--I don’t know,” she said, her voice timid, defeated. “Because I can’t compete with all those years.”

She suddenly seemed like a runaway train he couldn’t catch. He cut the distance between them with two heavy, frantic strides, but she seemed unreachable. Far away. “ _What_ years?”

“All those years we weren’t together. When you were in love with me and just...did what  _I_ did with Roy. Built me up in your head. Imagined a life with me, a  _fut_ ure with me.” She sniffled and paused, her hand swiping at her face. “And when all this wears off, you’ll realize that I don’t live up to what you imagined.”

He stared at the back of her head. He wished she would turn around. Her shoulders shook, and a sharp cry pierced the thick silence. He battled the temptation to take her words personally. Her anxiety stemmed from her past, not her present, and he could sympathize; he would be lying if he said he hadn’t feared that they would fail. That she would leave him like she left Roy. That he would put too much pressure on her. That they would discover they simply weren’t compatible. But he always circled around to the same belief--the only one that mattered.

When he wrapped his arms around her, she jerked with surprise. He pressed himself against her back and stood with her in the dim evening light. His lips brushed the side of her forehead as he whispered to her. “I love you.”

Her hands curled around his forearm, as if to keep him there. “I can’t be perfect,” she said.

“I don’t expect you to be--”

“I want to be myself.”

“I  _want_  you to be yourself.”

“I tried for so long to be the person that I thought I  _should_  be.”

“I know.”

“I just don’t want to be punished for...what I needed to do to be happy.” She absently smoothed the hair on his arm.

“Pam,” he said, then turned her around to face him. “I can’t speak for God, or the universe, or any force of cosmic justice. But, you know, for all those years? I had a lot of time to figure out if I really loved you, or if I just...loved the i _dea_  of you, or if what I felt was just a crush. Before I left, and then in Stamford, and then after I came back. I had almost six years to figure that out. And, yeah, there were times when I wasn’t sure if I loved you or”--he shook his head and drew a deep breath--“if you were worth the trouble, but that was a long time ago.” He met her eyes and raised his hand to cup the back of her head. “But I know what I want. And, Pam”--his thumb brushed her cheek--“I’m looking right at her.”

Her tear spilled over his thumb and trickled down to the corner of her mouth. Shadows covered half of her face, but he still saw her lips pull into a tight, sheepish line. He wordlessly eased her into a loose hug and closed his eyes. The tension in Pam’s body started to dissolve, and a wave of relief let him breathe slower, easier.

When she pulled back, she asked, “You’re not concerned that I’m... a little different now?”

“Concerned? Nah.”

“But you have an opinion?”

“Oh, of course.” He didn’t elaborate immediately, but maintained eye contact and tilted his head, lips sealed.

It took all of three seconds for her to prompt him. “You want to  _tell_  me?”

He responded with a high drawn-out hum. “Well,” he said, pretending to give great consideration to his choice of words. “I’m proud, I guess?”

Her voice brightened, but was colored with skepticism. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he said. “All those choices--they made you who you are. You stand up for yourself. You do more things you want to do. You took that art class with the AFA because  _you_ wanted to. It’s confident.” He drew her close and added in a low, quiet voice. “It’s sexy.”

He spied her satisfied smirk. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, then slanted his mouth across hers for a kiss. He kept it short, barely skimmed her lip with his tongue, but he reveled in it--their first kiss in four days. He pulled back just enough to add: “But you  _are_  a bit of a weirdo.”

“A  _weird_ o?” She playfully pressed her hand to his chest to shove him backwards.

He snatched her hand as she tried to push him, then stutter-stepped with her back toward the bed. “Oh, god. Yes,” he teased. “A com _plete_  dork.”

Ignoring her playful protests, he reeled her in and held her closer than before. His hands spread across the small of her back and his head dipped low as he kissed her. Her lips parted with the press of his tongue, and, when he deepened his kiss, he felt her pull at his shirt and--clumsily, distracted--start to undo the buttons. He broke away to loosen his tie and pull it through his collar, then met her with another kiss when she stood on her tiptoes and pushed his shirt off his shoulders. His tie fell from his hand and onto the floor.

“So what else?” She curved her hands around the back of his neck and played with the hair that curled behind his ears.

“Well.” His shirt joined his tie at their feet. “You’re kind of a sap.” He slid his hands under the hem of her shirt. Goosebumps rose on her cool skin when he touched her, palms pressed to her shoulder blades. He stole another kiss--fast, a little sloppy--and added, “I’ve never seen anyone cry so much at commercials.”

The tease had barely left his mouth when he flailed backwards, off-balance, and landed on the bed. She had made him fall with one unexpected push, and, when he finally found her in the shadow of the room, her smile was bold, her eyes were focused, and her clothes were off. “No,” she said, low and throaty, as she crawled over him. “What else is different?”

He felt the hard beat of his heart behind his breastbone. Her face was inches from his. Her hair tickled his cheeks. He flinched with a sharp exhale as she traced a line on the skin above his belt. As he stared at her, his breaths came faster and heat spread over his hips, across his chest, into his face. She fell away from view when she moved her mouth to the side of his head.

“Jim.” The warm flow of her breath sent a shiver down his body. She planted kisses on his neck, and he felt himself swell, harden as her voice floated back to his ear. “What else is different?”  

A clever response-- _any_  response--suddenly seemed impossible. He searched his brain, but his attention had narrowed to the tease of her delicate touches, the throb of his dick, how badly he wanted her to fuck him. “Uh,” he rasped. His eyes flickered down to her hands as they unfastened his belt. “Well, uh, you’re--uh--” He stuttered to a stop, watching her unzip his pants and pull the rest of his clothes off his body. When she trailed her finger up the length of his shaft, he let his head fall back to the mattress.

“I’m what?” she asked, before she raised herself up and straddled him.

He squirmed under her. “You’re--” He slid his hands up her thighs. “Assertive. Stronger.”

And he heard more than saw her cat-like smile as she wrapped her hand around him, spread her knees wide and--

“Mm, oh,  _god_.”

\--surrounded him.

His breath hitched as she seized his wrists, raised them above his shoulders, and held them to the bed.

“Stronger?” she whispered. She lifted her hips and paused, then slid slowly, all the way down, and brushed his mouth with a half-second kiss. “Like this?”

She stayed still and clenched around him--a pulse, a  _tease_ , that pulled a deep groan from the back of his throat. “Oh, my god, Pam.”

“That’s not an answer.”

She squeezed his wrists as she moved on him with measured, even strokes. He slid so smoothly within her, and he tried to lift his hips, push deeper, all the way inside her.

“Oh, fuck. Yes. Like that.” It was as if she needed to prove her confidence--to herself or to Jim, he wasn’t sure, but, as she thrust down and rocked her hips, he didn’t care.

When she released his wrists, his eyes snapped to her face. She held his gaze and sat up, then slid her hand over her breast, down her body, and between her legs. His mouth fell open as she touched herself--her head back, throat exposed, her whole body bare and open.  _Fuck._  He saw himself disappear into her, and he had to close his eyes, had to slow down, had to slow  _her_  down. A breathy sound rose from her mouth as she moved, and he nearly lost himself in that sound, in the flow of her body, the steady push-slide of her, tight and wet around him. He could feel her squeeze him whenever she touched herself, and-- _fuck, yes_ \--he wanted more, and he pushed into her with hard, desperate thrusts.

She must have noticed the break in his rhythm, the tension in his face, because she flattened her hand on his chest--demanded his attention. “Jim,” she said, hoarse but controlled. “Don’t come yet.”

His breath skipped and his jaw clenched. He pushed his head into the bed. “Oh, god,” he choked. “Pam, please.” He ached, burned deep in his hips.

“Don’t. Not yet.”

Anticipation flared in his stomach and broke over his chest. It took all of his concentration to hold back, to stop his drive to throw her down and bury himself inside her.

She came a moment later--knees pressed to his side, her head and body curled forward. Her hips twitched as she collapsed onto him, her breath a hot wave across his neck. He moved even easier inside her then, with fast, shaky thrusts. His chest constricted for a moment when he felt her push one hand under his shoulder, the other under his head, and hold him tenderly, as close as she could.

Her lips skimmed his ear. “Now.”

The hot coil of tension inside him snapped as he held her hips down and pushed as far as he would reach. His body jerked as he came, his face turned into the curve of her neck, his splintered rasps muffled by her skin. As he fell back into the mattress, his head fuzzy, he nearly missed the soft kiss she laid on his temple.

After Pam pulled away and climbed off him, he was only half-aware of her satisfied hum and automatically stretched his arm out so she could reposition herself and stretch out by his side. As Pam laid her head on his shoulder, he noticed the red glow of the alarm clock on her face. The sun had already set, and the clock display was the only light to break the darkness of the room. “We, uh, forgot to turn on a light,” he said.

“Oh, thanks, Mr. Obvious,” she teased.

“Okay, well,” he mumbled, shifting to his side. “I’m just going to--”

_“Her moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me toward salvation.”_

He had accidentally turned on the radio.

“Oh! This song cracks me up,” she said, then cheerfully chimed in with the next lyric. “I stopped a nomad along the way, hoping to find some--”

“I don’t think those are the words,” he interrupted as he found the lamp’s switch. Soft light filled the room with a  _click_.

“What?”

“You said ‘nomad.’” He shut off the radio before lying back down. “It’s ‘old man.’”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Beesly, but you think wrong.”  

“Okay.” A tight-lipped smile spread across her face as she settled beside him.

“Okay,” he echoed.

For a few minutes, they were quiet. Jim lazily brushed her shoulder with the back of his knuckles. She shifted her head and feather-kissed his collarbone. He released an extended breath. It was as if a hurdle had been cleared.

When his thoughts wandered to their plans for the next day, he broke the silence. “So when is your car going to be fixed?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Want a ride to work?”

When he peered down at her, she already wore a smile. “That would be great,” she said. “Thanks.”

In his car, Jim smiles as he repeats Pam’s mistaken lyrics, “I stopped a nomad along the way, hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient me-e-elodies.”

As he passes another car, he forgets to signal and laughs it off, but his chuckle drowns in the thunder and rain.

 _“It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.”_  Toto still swims in his head, even after the last beats fade away.

With a hurried look to the side of the road, he envisions a wet, shiny street--desert dust morphs into concrete, rocks turn into a bench. Pam stands on the corner, half-hidden under her umbrella. He wishes he could pull over and watch her climb into the car. He wishes she sat beside him, even if conversation became serious--or stalled entirely.

He misses her.

This time, when he sees an overpass, he stops underneath it. With a dull ache in his chest, he turns off the radio, reaches for his phone, and calls home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the readers that stuck with this story, despite a bit of a hiatus. This chapter took a solid month to write and required four re-writes. (I was also on vacation and had to deal with a few super-stressful months at work.) I really appreciate all of you, and I'm pleased to be back.


	6. Mile 723

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim ends up in the hospital and is disappointed when Pam cancels their trip away. 
> 
> References to: "Weight Loss" (S5E1), "Frame Toby" (S5E9), and "Dwight's Speech" (S2E17).
> 
> Chapter rating: K+ (PG).

He stops to fill up his tank around ten o’clock. Rain--lighter than before--still dots his windshield. The car at the pump in front of him bears a red and yellow sticker, a crab, in the corner of the rear window.

He suddenly craves the taste. He knows that convenience stores, even in Maryland, don’t carry crab, but he waits for the pump to stop, locks his car, and browses the shelves of the store. Inside, he overhears a man--undoubtedly the crab-car’s owner--on the phone.

“No, man, the Seafood Fest is always mid-September. I don’t think it’s too late for me to catch a plane. Yeah, let’s do it.”

As Jim stands in line to pay for his Combos and Gatorade, he watches the man walk to his car. An Orioles hat sits atop his head. Jim steps forward to set his items on the counter, and the fluorescent bulb above him flickers.

He tried to stretch above his head and search for a switch, but he winced as pain bored into his shoulders.

In an unfamiliar bed, he slumped down and tried to draw a deep breath. The air scratched his throat as he inhaled, then burst back out of him with a fitful cough. By now, a familiar pattern. After three days of this, he had expected to turn a corner. He had expected his damn fever to break, but, instead, he still felt as if he’d lost a battle with a bull--as if a crazy-ass bull had hunted him down, kicked him over, and drilled its horns into his chest, his legs, his back.  

He reached behind his ear. The warm bump still beat with its own life at the back of his head. He scowled--at the bump, at the acute, bone-deep pain that refused to fade, at the lime-poison color cast onto his bed by the fluorescent tube that flickered beyond his reach.

He already looked sickly--pathetic--all on his own. He could do without the hospital  _ambiance_.

He’d lost track of time. When he’d woken up with a cold on Wednesday, he’d carried on normally. On Wednesday afternoon, Michael had sent him home with a packet of Alka-Seltzer from the first-aid kit and a slap on the ass. Jim had assumed that the latter took the place of a “Get Well” card, had waved to Pam, and drove home to bed.

Today, he had burned another sick day, but he’d pulled his suitcase out from under his bed and packed for Baltimore. Pam had booked the trip to thank him for his support while she had been away at Pratt. “Four days in Baltimore, just the two of us,” she’d said. “Seafood Fest.  _Crab_.” An unexpected present.

With his suitcase full, he had started to pack up the rest of his apartment. Pam had loved the house, creepy clown art and all, and they had decided on a move-in date--the weekend after Baltimore. With one trip and one move on the near-horizon, he had no time to lie in bed and sip orange juice through a straw all day.

But when he had tried to carry a stack of plates to the box on the table, he had crumpled to the floor and woke up with a sharp headache, surrounded by shards of ceramic. With fuzzy vision and shaky hands, he had dialed his phone. He’d expected to hear Pam, but Larisa had answered--he’d been one speed-dial off--and, twenty minutes later, Larisa had checked him into the ER.

He frowned at the tube that twisted around his forearm.

Larisa had left after the nurse had connected his IV, pulled away by a late work shift. He hadn’t remembered to ask her to call Pam.

His coat was draped over the back of a chair, ten feet away. His phone buzzed with a faint vibration; it  _taunt_ ed him from his coat pocket.

A scrub-colored blur sped past his door.

“Hey!” he shouted.

No one backtracked. No one responded.

He pressed his head into the pillow and weakly whined: “Can someone please find my phone? I need to call someone.”

His head jerked up, and his eyes snapped to the door as a soft voice replied, “Where is it? It’s in your coat, isn’t it?”

“Pam.” Her name was only one syllable, but relief overlaid every individual sound, each letter, when he spoke. “ _Uh_. God. You’re here. I wanted to call you, but--”

Her head fell to the side as she walked to his bed. “It’s okay. Larisa called.” A warm half-smile played on her face. “What happened?” she asked. “You said you had a cold.”

He closed his eyes when she pushed damp hair off his forehead. Her fingertips painted cool streaks across his skin.

“It is a cold,” he said. “With a little side of the flu.”

She shook her head. “Jim,” she whispered, amusement and exasperation heavy in her voice. She paused to stroke the soft, fine hair at his temple. “How bad’s your fever?”

His eyes stayed closed. “I don’t know. A hundred and one? Two? I can’t remember,” he said. A nurse had recorded his temperature earlier. “It’s probably on the chart.”

She pulled her hand away from his forehead. He opened his eyes in time to see her wipe her hand on her skirt. “Larisa said you fainted.”

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Turns out that dehydration can  _lit_ erally knock you on your ass.”

“I told you to drink--”

“I did, but--”

She raised her eyebrows, skepticism plain on her face.

“I  _did_ ,” he insisted. Then, quietly, he added, “Not  _con_ stantly.”

“Uh huh,” she said with a smirk. “Well, at least you got that flu shot last month. That should lessen your symptoms. I can’t believe one of Michael’s ideas actually paid off.”

Jim avoided her eyes. He could  _feel_ his ears turn red. 

She must have noticed. “Jim! You didn’t get the  _shot_? You didn’t even have to go to a doctor’s office! The doctor came to you! The conference room was reserved for  _hours_.”

He scoffed--almost. He sputter-coughed instead. “Look, they only make so many of those vaccines, and other people need it more than I do.”

“How noble.”

“Seriously,” he said. “Babies. Old people.” He turned away from her and braced himself as his body shuddered with another wave of dry, hoarse coughs. “Besides, I have everything I need. Antivirals. Fluids.” He pointed to his IV. “And this heated blanket.”

“Oh. Well,” she said, pretend-impressed. But when she slipped her hand under the blanket, her tone brightened. “ _Oh_. That  _is_  toasty.”

“Right?”

His chest relaxed as she chuckled with him. His eyes dropped down to the bed when he felt her take hold of his hand and squeeze. They stayed quiet for a few minutes. Pam helped herself to a chair, took off her coat, and sat beside his bed.

Jim broke the silence first. “So,” he said. “About Baltimore--”

“I cancelled the reservation.”

He blinked, surprised. “Why? When?”

“In the lobby,” she said, almost a question. “After Larisa talked to me and told me what happened.”

“What if we put if off for a day? Just make it shorter? We could still make it.”

Her lips curved into a small frown. “I don’t think that’s a--”

“No, Pam, come on,” he pleaded. “We’ve spent about a week together in the past three months. And now you’re finally back, and I’m  _sick_ , and I still haven’t seen you more than a day here or there, and--” He stopped, annoyed, nearly out of breath. When he leaned his head back, he felt the slow, sticky slide of mucus down the back of his throat. “This  _sucks_.”

No way around it. First bout of the flu in over a decade. Residual anxiety still churned in his stomach on a daily basis, despite Pam’s return from New York, despite their plans to move in, despite their plans to  _marry_. Michael’s offhand remark had floated into his head numerous times while she had been away: “ _Engaged ain’t married._ ” He wasn’t sure he’d feel secure until they traded vows, but the trip to Baltimore--the time alone, the opportunities for romance, for real connection--felt like a chance to fortify their relationship.

He let his head loll on the pillow as he closed his eyes for a moment and repeated, “This sucks.”

Silence hovered in the room. When Pam finally parted her lips and met his eyes, she spoke slowly, and her words seemed disconnected from their conversation--a non-sequitur that took a moment for him to follow.  

“You know,” she started, drawing a deep breath. “When I was seven, I broke my arm.”

Despite his impulse to discuss their trip--to find a way to make it work--he peered at her with interest. A broken arm--this was new information.

“I fell out of a tree in the backyard,” she continued. “I tried to build a treehouse. Well”--she breathed a soft laugh--“I carried up a bunch of tools. A saw. Some nails. A hammer.”

A pink, embarrassed blush colored her cheeks as she smiled. He raised his eyebrows at her and matched her smile, his mind rich with details--a small, pony-tailed Pam with her arms full of tools as she eyed the best place for a treehouse. “Wow. Carpenter Pam,” he teased. “I can’t believe you threw away a chance at such a lucrative career.”

“Oh, well, it wasn’t so much about the wood-craft as it was about the heights,” she said. “I could have made it as a utility pole...climber.” Her smile widened.

“You’d look really cute in a hardhat,” he volleyed.

“I could have  _used_  a hardhat,” she admitted. “I remember losing my grip. I had one arm around the trunk and was leaning to the side--I thought I could cut off one of the smaller branches. And I leaned too far and fell. Smacked my head on the ground and landed right on my arm. It was awful.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I screamed so loud, and my mom ran out of the house. I could still remember her next to me. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay,’ she said. And I screamed at her, ‘Mom! Mom! My arm is  _broken_.’ And she tried to calm me down. ‘No, it’s not, honey. No, it’s not.’ But I ended up at the hospital and--broken arm.” She paused. “But after my x-ray, my mom stayed in my room with me. She had flowers from the gift shop, and she made up this adorable story about all the tiny creatures that lived on all the flowers. She called them flower bugs.”

“ _Flower_  bugs?” he repeated, amused.

She nodded. “Flower bugs. And she told me that I had to take special care of these flowers. I remember asking questions: was there a school flower, or flower bug-babies, and she just...went with it. It’s honestly hard for me to look at flowers and  _not_ think of flower bugs.”

He shook his head. “Well, Beesly, I’m offended,” he said. At her quizzical look, he continued, “I’m offended that this story didn’t come with my own flowers.”

“I did miss that opportunity, didn’t I?”

“You really did.”

“But I took your mind off the suckiness.” Her self-satisfied smirk lit up her face.

“ _Damn_ , Beesly,” he said, realizing he hadn’t coughed, hadn't sniffled during her whole story. He hadn’t wiped at the sweat on his forehead. He had almost forgotten where they were. “Nice. Well done.”

She stood up and bowed with a flourish before taking her seat again. 

He sobered quickly as his mind returned to their trip. Their non-trip. He fiddled with the blanket before he quietly said, “I’m sorry I busted up our trip.”

“It’s not your fault.” Her hand covered his; her thumb brushed the soft skin on the inside of his wrist. “We’ll visit another time.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. We’ll see Baltimore,” she said, her optimism infectious. “And lots of other places.”

He jumped at the chance to distract himself. “Like where? What’s on your travel wish-list?”

She seemed taken aback by the question, but she barely needed time to think about the answer. “Well, there’s Europe. And South America. I’ve never seen the Pacific Ocean. That would be nice, drive down the California coast, maybe? And the Grand Canyon. Maybe some Caribbean islands? I’ve never been out of the country, so that would be--”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Have you?”

An awkward conversation leaped from his memory. Non-refundable tickets to Sydney and back. A tour of the opera house. A bike tour of the Australian coast. All unused. “Al--”  _Almost_ , he nearly said, but didn’t feel up to the whole story. “Ah, no, actually. I haven’t.” Then, quickly, he added, “But, hey, we can pick anywhere on your list and, you know, plan a new trip.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Sure,” he said. “I mean, we still have to plan a honeymoon.”

She nodded appreciatively. “Very true.”

“So, what’ll it be?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Well, all those place seem great.” Her smile started off small, but spread as she spoke. “And I hate to pick such a typical honeymoon, but--”

“But you want a tropical honeymoon, don’t you?”

She clasped her hands, as if in prayer, and smiled comically wide. “I really do.” She rushed to add, “Not to Mexico. But Puerto Rico sounds nice.”

He paused. Make-believe sunshine warmed his face. He could imagine the soft, steady rush of the tide. “That does sound nice,” he agreed. “We can stay at a resort.”

Pam raised her eyebrows. “Ooh.”

“We can snorkel.”

“See some fishes?”

“See some fishes,” he echoed, unable to stop himself from picturing her underwater, pointing out colorful fish. Later, they could make up silly names for each type of fish, as they basked on the beach.

“Eat ice cream on the beach?” she asked, her voice high and hopeful. “Get some sand good and wedged between our toes.”

“I’m sure we could make that happen.”

“Well.” She curled her hand around his. “I think we just planned our honeymoon.”

“I think we did,” he said, wishing he could wrap his hand around the back of her head, pull her toward him, and kiss her. He settled for squeezing her hand instead.

For the next few minutes, he focused so much of his attention on her soft smile, on the happiness in her eyes, he missed the moment when his nurse had entered his room. It was as if she had suddenly materialized beside the bed. Jim squinted at her; she looked familiar.

“I’m sorry to disrupt your  _moment_ ,” the nurse said, sass dripping from her voice. “But I have your discharge papers here.”

“Tough day?” he asked, his words bereft of any sincere sympathy.

The nurse, a dark-haired, reed-thin woman, stared at him with hard, severe eyes. She thrust the clipboard at him. “You could say that.”

Jim chanced a peek at Pam, who had sunk down in her seat and hid most of her face behind her coat, which she clutched to her chest. Her eye lines told him that her coat was covering a broad smile.

When Jim had slapped his name on the papers, the nurse tucked them under her arm. As she reached the door, she said, “Let’s try to keep our ER trips to a minimum, hmm? Two in the last few months isn’t the best track record.”

The realization smacked him:  _that_ washow he knew the nurse.  

He nearly felt the breeze caused by the sudden snap of Pam’s head in his direction. “What?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “When were you here?”

Before he could throw a snide remark to the nurse, she had disappeared. Like a meddlesome poltergeist sent into his room to destroy the shreds of quiet bliss he had found in an otherwise miserable experience.

He tried to draw a deep breath. The air seemed to rattle down his throat. “A couple months ago,” he said. “I thought I had an ulcer.”

“You had an  _ul_ cer?”

“I  _thought_  I had an ulcer,” he corrected her. “But I didn’t. I was just stressed, and I was drinking a lot of coffee, but it was nothing.”

She searched his face for a minute--maybe more--before she slowly responded, “It was nothing?”

“It was nothing.”

“You’re fine now?”

“I was fine before.”

“I still wish you would have told me.”

He exhaled with a stutter. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

She raised her eyebrows. He had a feeling she didn’t entirely buy his explanation.

“And,” he added. “I was a little embarrassed.”

She stood up, combed her fingers through his hair, then leaned down to kiss his forehead. Her lips brushed his skin when she spoke. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay.” Stepping back, she met his eyes. “But no more hospital visits. I can’t go to Puerto Rico by myself. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They never made it to Baltimore. For years, he viewed it as a missed opportunity, but, as he sips his Gatorade and drives back onto the interstate, he remembers a trip to the Texas coast. He nearly reaches for his phone to find a photo of Pam--one of his favorites. Almost up to her knees in water. Waders barely visible. She beamed with a proud, excited smile as she showed off a live blue crab. Her first catch.

Cece refused to eat it, upset that they hadn’t allowed her to keep it as a pet. “Crab killers!” she shouted, then stormed away from the table. A week later, Pam finished an illustrated short story about a hero toddler who rescued all the crabs in the ocean. “The Crab Keeper,” she called it.

He passes a road sign, and his mind follows the road taken--the hospital to Puerto Rico, Scranton to Texas, crab killer to Crab Keeper--and realizes that Baltimore wasn’t a missed opportunity after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crab is, without a doubt, the best food. Jim has some fine culinary taste.


	7. Mile 829

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim humors Pam with a last-minute visit to a local tree farm and gets more than a Christmas tree. 
> 
> Brief references to various events in Season 5. 
> 
> Chapter rating: MA (NC-17) (for spontaneous sexy times).

The billboard catches his attention from a hundred yards out. It flouts convention and, rather than a rectangle, takes the shape of a pumpkin, cartoon-like and enormous. Construction-crew-orange text announces:

_Pumpkin patch! Bring the whole family!_

_Haunted Wild West corn maze!_

_September 15 - October 31_

_Come back for our Christmas Trees!_

_November 1 - December 25_

_(Yes, we’re open Christmas Day!)_

For a moment, he considers a detour. But his travel schedule is strict, and he could already feel the next day looming ahead of him. He envisions a full day of hard, exhausting work and knows that, once he checks into his hotel, he’ll need a hearty meal and eight hours of quality sleep. If it was December, he would have been more tempted to stop for a stroll among rows of Christmas trees; pumpkins didn’t have quite the same draw.

Winter in NEPA struck with a force that stole your breath away. A thick, gray gloom settled over the area like a shroud between November and April. Snow and ice piled up, and turned black and crusty on the side of the road. For nearly half of the year, the world became a dreary black and white photograph.

Except for Christmas. The population vibrated with excitement and ushered in December with an explosion of colorful decorations. Lights twinkled and flashed on almost every house, on every utility pole that lined every Main Street in the region. Carolers still visited hospitals, and families lined up to see Santa Clauses at fire stations, department stores, even greenhouses, where elves scampered around displays of poinsettia. Jim’s heart reserved a special place for the lazy bliss of winter holidays--lounging after an afternoon of sledding in a house that smelled like snickerdoodles and hot chocolate, basking in the radiant glow of a freshly decorated tree. He’d always enjoyed it, because all those lights, all those decorations, all that warmth fortified him for the bleak, colorless winter months ahead.

Jim slides his hand along the steering wheel, passing the exit. A faint smile pulls at his mouth as he thinks of snow drifts on Christmas Eve and hears the echo of a determined plea.

“Please, Jim.  _Please._  Please. Please. Come on. Please.”

Pam bounced in front of him, her boot laces tied, her coat zipped, a scarf around her neck--ready to brave the outdoors.

He peered at her over his freshly poured glass of eggnog. The real stuff. He’d ground the nutmeg himself, one of the few culinary traditions his father had passed on to him. “Pam--”

“ _Please._  Please, Jim,” she said, her voice an octave away from a whine. She tried to pull him out of his chair by his wrist. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Exactly.” He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles, and rested his feet on the coffee table in front of him.

“It could be my Christmas present.”

“I already have your Christmas present,” he said. “It’s wrapped and everything.”

“Yeah, but this could be my  _other_  Christmas present.”

“Greedy, Beesly,” he teased as a grin played at the corners of his mouth. His eyes followed her as she walked, stiff with determination, to the open closet and retrieved his coat. “If you really wanted a tree, you should have mentioned it before now.”

She faltered for moment, looking as though she were chewing on unspoken words. Her eyes seemed to grow three times their size, like the Grinch’s stupid, eggnog-interrupting heart, as she stared at him with a silent plea and thrust his coat into the space between them. “We’ve been...busy.”

Busy.

Sure.

“That’s one way to put it,” he mumbled, then emptied his glass.

The last four months had been a rollercoaster of joy and disappointment. Hectic, stressful, busy. Pam had been busy at Pratt. He’d been busy buying a house. Not long after Pam returned, they were busy visiting family for Thanksgiving, busy moving into their new house, busy making that house their own. He hadn’t cared about a Christmas Tree.

But Pam’s arm practically quivered as she held out his coat. Guilt knocked at his chest. He wanted to believe he was under the spicy, boozy influence of holiday eggnog, but, whether it was the guilt, the nog, or the hopeful expression on Pam’s face, the chance to make the night more joyful and less disappointing seemed worth the trouble of changing out of his pajamas and into a pair of jeans.

“I think,” he said, pushing himself off of the couch. “Roba’s is still open.” He nearly missed Pam’s bright I-knew-it smile as he wavered where he stood, his head foggy with brandy. He shimmied into his coat and added, “But you’re driving,” then followed her out to her car.

As she pulled out of the driveway, Christmas carols streamed out of the speakers. Pam’s excitement remained on her face for the entire ride, somehow becoming wider when she took him by the arm and led him into a row of full, green trees. The scent of pine sap and bark wafted into his nostrils, transporting him to his childhood, as if the spirit of Christmas itself took hold of him and threw him abruptly into the season. Despite the cold of the air, a wave of familiar warmth swept over his body, and he grinned softly as he followed Pam deeper into the field of trees.

He wove with her between the innumerable rows, the soft brush of pine needles at his elbow. Laughter spilled from him as he ran after her, bursting through the misty clouds of her breath until he nearly toppled over her. She had stopped and turned to face him, content, it seemed, to let him barrel into the palms of her out-turned hands and catch him in a startling--but not unwelcome--kiss.

He let her pull him closer by the chords of his sweatshirt, opening his mouth to her, finding the curve of her waist with his fingertips. Despite the recent eggnog and exertion, his body hummed with readiness. But as she pushed her tongue into his mouth, as she spread her hands across his back and drew him against her, he suddenly became aware of their exposure. The idea that someone could happen upon them made his hands grip the wooly fabric of her coat, made him pull away to look at her, made him hard, his breath stutter, his hips jerk forward and into her touch.

“Pam,” he whispered, already breathless. “We really should--”

“Yeah?” The huskiness of her voice made him tense with desperate, hot longing for her.

“We should pick a tree or we might--”

Before he closed his eyes, he saw her smile--wry, knowing, purposeful.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be”--her fingers unfastened his jeans--“stuck out here”--she wrapped her hand around him,  _squeezed_ , made him breathe a jerky exhale--“alone with you.”

“God, no,” he said, watching her, transfixed, as she shed her pants completely, tossing them over a high tree bough, away from the snow.

“We’ll pick our tree later,” she whispered, then bent over to face a lush evergreen. Her hands found its trunk, and she used it for leverage as she pushed back against him, slowly rubbing, up and down the length of him-- _taunt_ ing him--until he stopped her, one hand gripping her hip while the other guided his full, straining dick toward the warmest part of her.

His eyes fluttered closed, and he held her still, pushing once, twice--fully inside her.

Her voice--a small, soft, noisy breath--made him open his eyes and look down at the curve of her back--her hips, her ass--rolling back to take him in, deep and hard. And he felt a blaze of heat race through his lungs, into his mouth, and leave him with a throaty growl as he thrust into her with a rough, uneven rhythm.

She tried to match him, nearly falling off balance. Her voice shook with his name. The tree she grasped shook, too. “Jim. Oh. God, Jim.”

She turned her head, chin tucked into her shoulder--enough for him to see her face, half-shielded by her hair. He reached with one hand and gathered a fistful of that hair--holding, not pulling. Feeling the strands that still retained the heat of her skin as he pushed forward again, words on his breath punctuating each stroke--again--again--”Oh. Pam. Yeah. Fuck. God, Pam.”

He could already feel her pulsing around him--strong and erratic. When her body started to tense, when she started to move less, he leaned down, closer to her. “Come,” he said. “I want to feel it, Pam.” He made himself move slower within her. With the tip of his forefinger, he grazed--just barely--her parted folds, her swollen clit before pressing down hard, one forceful stroke, then another, and another. “I want to feel you come. Come for me.”

Her cry, sharp but sweet in his ears, split the cold, silent air, and, for a second, a flash of fear sliced through his satisfaction. He glanced over his shoulders and through the trees to see if they had attracted anyone’s attention, but the scene was empty and the trees were still as Pam twitched, pushed herself onto him, warm and wet and  _his_.

The slick slip-slide of her, tighter than before, made his eyes close again, made him shudder as he came. His breaths formed small puffs of fog that rose and drifted above them, above the tops of pointed trees, seen by no one.

After a few moments, Pam broke away from him to dress, then stood to her full height and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She pressed a cold handprint to the back of his neck, and it jarred him for a moment before he breathed deliberately into her touch. He let himself know it, memorize it, sense the slow shift in temperature as her skin grew warm under the collar of his coat. Closing his eyes, he curled his hand around her forearm, squeezing as he pressed his face against her shoulder, found the skin of her neck, and laid a firm, ardent kiss there.

Dressed once more against the cold, he took her hand and strolled through the trees without a word. Near the edge of the field, an employee found them, and Jim took the opportunity to choose a tree--stout but full, a brilliant green.

Pam wore a closed-mouth, broad smile as they entered the shop to pay for their tree. Jim brandished his credit card for the cashier, then joined Pam at a display of baked goods--pies, cupcakes, cookies.

“Look at all this,” she said, waving a hand at the goodies. “Makes me wish I’d baked cookies this year.”

He spied the regret in her face and curled his arm around her. “It’s not too late,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “We’ve got the tree.” He glanced towards the parking lot, where a scrawny teenager was tying the tree to Pam’s car. “No reason why we can’t whip up a batch of cookies before your mom gets here tomorrow.”   

“You should have seen the spread my mom used to have,” she said, smiling. She reached for a pack of decorated Christmas cookies--a collection of colorful ornaments--and held them gently in her hand. “We’d bake all day. Oatmeal butterscotch cookies. Snickerdoodles. Chocolate chip, obviously.”

“Those peanut butter ones with Hershey Kisses?”

“Oh, of course.” A genuine smile, full of memories and bright love for him, lit her face.

But it faded quickly, and as she replaced the cookies on the shelf, he bent his neck to maintain a clear view of her face. He frowned at the sadness that lingered there.

He snuck frequent glances at her face as they left the shop and walked to the car. When he followed her into the car and shut the door, he allowed himself to sit under a heavy silence for a few seconds--it felt like minutes--before he reached for her hand. “What’s up?”

She tilted her head as she heaved her eyes over to him. Her sigh moved the air within the car. “We never talked about it,” she said. “I didn’t want to assume anything, but--”

“But?” He felt the weight of serious words sinking toward him, and his heart drummed with a fast cadence behind his breastbone.

“I’ve been wondering about it for a while,” she said. “Even before--” She cut herself short. Her eyes flickered to his, hesitant.

“Before what?” he prompted. He held her hand tightly, keeping it still, away from the car’s ignition switch.

“Kids,” she blurted. “I wondered about it before we got engaged. And I wanted to bring it up, but it never seemed like the right time, but…” She dropped her chin, peering at him from behind her eyelashes. “Do you...do you want...kids?”

He stared at her. Of all the hypothetical questions that had sped, Mach 2, through his brain, he hadn’t anticipated that one, and he stuttered in response, hurrying to answer--not because he had to dig himself out of a trap. Because he had the answer she wanted. “Yes,” he said, firm and definite. “Yes, Pam, yes, I do.”

The relief in her smile eased the tension in his shoulders, made the muscles of his face relax, and he released her hand. His head fell back against the seat and his eyes closed, but they flew open a moment later. “Wait,” he said. “Are you asking because--”

Pam flashed an electric smile.

“Are you--are you  _preg_ nant?”

She snorted. “No.”  

“That’s not  _my_  Christmas present, is it?” he said. “Because, Pam, I thought my list was pretty clear--”

Her laughter seemed to fill the car, and, at first, he wasn’t sure if she was giggling at what he’d said or because she’d set him up so successfully for a surprise. “No,” she said. “No, I swear, I’m not pregnant.”  

“You’re  _sure_.”

“I’m sure.”

He squinted at her, then directed all his effort into appearing poised and calm. He leaned back against the seat, stretching his legs out as far as he could. “I know.”

“Wait, how could you know?” she asked.

He waved at her absently. “I’d be able to tell.”

“Really?” she said, disbelief coloring every syllable she spoke. “You’d be able to  _tell_? You’d be able to tell if _I_  was pregnant?”

“Pam, come on,” he said. “I’d be able to tell.”

She stayed silent long enough to make him look at her. Unspoken retorts scrolled across her face and, when she finally replied, she jabbed at his shoulder with a resolute finger. “I bet you naming rights to our baby that, when I’m pregnant, you won’t be able to tell.”

He raised his voice as the car’s engine blared to life. “You’re  _bet_ ting on this?”

“Yup.”

“Betting?” He sat up straighter. “On something that will be one of the happiest moments of our lives?”

“That’s right,” she said, matter-of-fact and stern. “You won’t know I’m pregnant until you get the news broken to you.”

He watched her for a moment as she steered the car toward the exit. He pictured the way she would sneak off to the bathroom to hide her morning sickness, the way she would slyly reject alcohol, or dodge questions about food aversions. Then he imagined them both, huddled around the wispy-haired head of their new child, and a soft smile spread slowly across his face. He waited to reply until she quickly peeked at him. “You’re on, Beesly.”

Months later, when the doctor broke the news, Jim knew he lost the bet. Pam remembered later, but she never insisted on exclusive naming rights. He smiles as he drives, recalling his confusion when she asked him what he wanted to name their baby.

But, even though they arrived at Cece’s name together, he left full-time parenting to Pam. He helped, sure. He took over when it wasn’t inconvenient. He was there, mostly, for the fun, happy times. But he admitted to himself long ago that he only assumed all the responsibilities of full-time fatherhood after he and Pam recovered from what had nearly been the end of their marriage. His first day in Athleap’s Austin office, Pam stood near the door of the conference room and tried to hide her smile when he introduced himself to his new staff and said, “My family comes first. Yours should, too.”  

His own words replay in his head later, when he answers Cece’s call. He steps away from the hotel desk, from his notebook full of pitch notes for prospective clients, and listens to Cece’s voice squeal her latest news.

“Basketball captain, Dad! I can’t believe it!”

He stretches out on the too-squishy bed. “I can! You led the team in points last year. You’ve crushed it in practice.”

“But I’m not the tallest.”

“Not  _yet_.”

“Mom’s proud of me.”

He breathes around the clench of his heart, the love-knot in his chest. Pride laces his soft smile. “I am too, sweetie.”

When he pictures Cece’s face, it is topped by a delicate wisp of baby hair. Her tiny hand curls around Pam’s pinky as he watches a smile bloom on Pam’s face. He wants to hold her; he presses the phone flat to his ear instead and assures Cece that he’ll be back before the start of the season. There was something he had to do first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roba's is pretty cute. Check them out here: https://www.robafamilyfarms.com/.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Feedback is ♥


End file.
